WASHINGTON – In a state with a long history of discrimination and racial polarization, Mike Espy has tried to carefully walk the line on race as an issue in the Mississippi Senate contest, even after his Republican opponent’s comments about a “public hanging" went viral and put her campaign on the defense.

Espy, a Democrat, is in an uphill battle to unseat Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Tuesday’s special election.

Espy, an African-American, has criticized Hyde-Smith for making controversial comments, but has backed off repeatedly hammering herover remarks that evoked the state's brutal history of lynchings. He has mostly left that to others as he tries to court black and white voters.

Espy hasn’t shied away from the issue of race, but he hasn’t made it or Hyde-Smith’s comments a focus, said Rickey Hill, a retired chair of the Political Science Department at Jackson State University.

“The one thing that you don’t want to do in a state where racism still animates very well and racial voter polarization is a fact of life … is run a campaign that takes a side that would alienate voters who see themselves as being moderates and who would want to consider you,” he said.

The tight race is the last Senate contest this election cycle. If Hyde-Smith wins Tuesday, Republicans will have 53 seats next year instead of the 51 they now hold.

But the runoff has grabbed the national spotlight primarily because of Hyde-Smith's comments, which have sparked an uproar for what some in the conservative state say are racial overtones.

“Race is woven through the fabric of so many things here," said John Bruce, chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Mississippi. “You don’t have to have dog-whistle politics here. It already is all present.”

Espy, 64, a former congressman and U.S. secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration, is running for the seat of Republican Thad Cochran, who retired in April.

Hyde-Smith, 59, a beef cattle farmer, former state agriculture commissioner and a former state senator, was appointed to fill the remaining two years of Cochran’s term. Hyde-Smith, who is white, is the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., joined her colleagues to celebrate National Seersucker Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2018.(Photo: Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY)

Hyde-Smith is favored to win, but the gap has closed in recent weeks in the wake of her comments caught on video.

In one video at a Nov. 2 event, Hyde-Smith says of a supporter, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

The comment went viral with critics saying it conjured up images of lynchings and Mississippi's racist history. A photo of Hyde-Smith wearing a Confederate soldier's cap has also surfaced.

Then Democrats accused Hyde-Smith of supporting voter suppression, citing a video in which she can be heard saying that "maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult" for some people to vote, and "so I think that's a great idea."

Hyde-Smith’s campaign has said she was making a joke and the video was selectively edited. Hyde-Smith accused her opponents of trying to twist her "public hanging'' remarks and has since apologized to "anyone who was offended" by the comment.

"There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever," she said at a Nov. 20 debate.

“She felt very badly, she certainly didn't mean that and, you know, it was taken a certain way but she certainly didn't mean it,’’ Trump told reporters outside the White House Monday as he headed to Mississippi for two rallies for Hyde-Smith.

Political experts said Espy has focused mostly on touting himself as a moderate and vowing to work across the aisle on issues important to Mississippi, including more access to affordable rural health care.

And while he would make history as the first African-American elected to Congress from Mississippi since Reconstruction, he has mostly let others hammer home that message.

“He’s not running as the African-American candidate, he’s running as the sensible alternative to Trump world, who happens to be a Democrat,” said Bruce, adding that Hyde-Smith's comments exacerbated the race issue. “This is a state that has, I would argue, probably the highest level of polarized voting in the country, so before the candidates are even determined, race is a factor here.”

Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the nonpartisan Cook Report, said race will also be a major factor in voter turnout.

“The contest is going to be decided on race one way or the other because Espy’s path to victory is dependent on African-American turnout," she said.

She said African-Americans made up 33 percent of the voters on Nov. 6, but Espy would need at least 36 percent of the electorate to be African-American for him to win Tuesday. He would also need again to capture about 16 percent of non-Republican white voters.

Duffy said the question is whether Hyde-Smith’s recent comments could spur more African-Americans to show up at the polls.

“Has it angered African-American voters enough to drive them to the polls?” she said.

Democrat Mike Espy, who is running for a Senate seat in Mississippi, talks to a crowd at a fundraiser Oct. 3, 2018, in Washington, D.C.(Photo: Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY)

And some of Espy’s advertising strategy aims to capitalize on Hyde-Smith’s "public hanging" comments.

One ad quotes a self-described Republican saying people are “scared to death” about what she’ll say next. One notes that Fortune 500 companies like Walmart have “rejected her divisive words.” And another says Mississippi “can’t afford a senator who embarrasses us and reinforces the stereotypes we’ve worked so hard to overcome.”

But those ads ran far less often between Nov. 7 and Nov. 24 than commercials attacking other parts of Hyde-Smith’s record, according to figures provided to USA TODAY by Kantar Media/CMAG. About three-quarters of the spots Espy aired during that time criticized Hyde-Smith for her lobbying work, for using campaign funds as state agriculture and commerce commissioner to buy a car, and for supporting an economic development package that included help for a beef processing plant that failed.

Likewise, the ads run by a Democratic super PAC have criticized Hyde-Smith’s record on health care.

Espy does try to apply the same label – disaster – in both types of ads. Those on her “public hanging” comment say she’s “so embarrassing, she’d be a disaster for Mississippi.” Ads about other parts of her record call her “ethics disaster Cindy Hyde-Smith.”

The smallest share of Espy’s ads – about 8 percent – focus on his promise to “find common ground and bring us together again.”

He reaches back to Mississippi’s divisive past in a spot that starts with a shot of the Lincoln Memorial as Espy repeats Abraham Lincoln’s admonition as the nation was on the brink of civil war to “seek the better angels of our nature.”

“It’s time, Mississippi, not to forget the past, but to forgive our trespasses," Espy says, “and come together to move Mississippi forward.”

Duffy said there isn’t a "huge upside" for Espy to talk about race.

“He doesn’t have to drive attention to it himself. Other people are doing it for him," she said. “Does his focus on it create a backlash? Does it sort of wake up white voters in a way that would not be especially helpful to him on Election Day?"

Instead, she said, the discussion has been mostly among voters, interest groups and the media "without the candidate having to come out and be so direct about it and risk looking like he’s whining or he’s only running on race."

Stephen Rozman, chair of the Political Science and History Department at Tougaloo College, said Espy has handled the issue of race well. He noted that Espy, a moderate, got the support of white voters when he successfully ran for Congress.

"He’s playing his hand well," said Rozman, citing a recent ad where someone other than Espy mentioned Hyde-Smith’s "public hanging" comment. "For Espy to push race himself too much, I think that would backfire."

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